Category Archives: UK news

Proof is in the pudding: M&S and Waitrose win Christmas food test

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Tasters compile league table of items such as turkey, gravy and yule logs from 52 UK stockists

Marks & Spencer and Waitrose have swept the board in an independent taste test of this year’s Christmas food and drink, both clinching first place in three categories of the UK’s festive favourites.

M&S was awarded top spot for its Christmas pudding, gravy and frozen turkey in the annual exercise by the Good Housekeeping Institute, while its rival, Waitrose, triumphed in the Christmas cake, champagne and yule log listings and was also rated for a vegan centrepiece.

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British pilot charged over Emiliano Sala plane crash death

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Man faces prosecution on two counts over Channel accident in which footballer died

A British pilot is to be prosecuted in connection with the plane crash in which the Argentinian professional footballer Emiliano Sala died.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) revealed on Thursday it had charged David Henderson, 66, with two offences relating to the accident over the Channel last year.

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No 10 startled by EU insistence that UK accept Brexit trade terms

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Bloc’s stance apparently taken as challenge to Boris Johnson’s threat to walk out on talks

Downing Street reacted in dismay as Emmanuel Macron led EU leaders in warning Boris Johnson that he must swallow the bloc’s conditions, in what appeared to be taken as a direct challenge to the British prime minister’s threat to walk out on the talks.

At a summit in Brussels, the EU proposed a further “two to three weeks” of negotiations but Europe’s heads of state and government offered Johnson little succour, demanding that he alone needed to “make the necessary moves to make an agreement possible”.

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Queen and Prince William criticised for maskless visit

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Palace says medical advice was sought before engagement at Porton Down defence lab

The Queen has carried out her first public engagement outside a royal residence since lockdown but there was criticism over her decision not to wear a mask.

She visited the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) at Porton Down near Salisbury with her grandson the Duke of Cambridge.

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Army warn they are on standby as police brutality protests intensify in Nigeria

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At least 10 are dead and dozens injured in street demonstrations demanding an end to widespread abuses by security forces

Nigeria’s army has warned it could step in against “subversive elements and troublemakers” as the protests against police brutality that have erupted throughout the country over the past week continue.

Thousands of mainly young people have taken to the streets to protest against the notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad, commonly known as Sars, long accused of unlawful killings and abuse, and against wider police brutality. At least 10 people have died and dozens injured in the demonstrations, which have been met with force by police units.

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Matt Hancock raises Covid alert level for parts of England including London – video

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The health secretary told the Commons that several areas of England were being moved to the tier 2 level of coronavirus restrictions designed for high-risk areas. The new rules will come into force at one minute past midnight on Saturday, for an undetermined amount of time, in areas including London, Essex, York and north-east Derbyshire

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UK coronavirus live: London, Essex, York and north-east Derbyshire among areas put into tier 2 restrictions

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Barrow-in-Furness, York, north-east Derbyshire, Erewash and Chesterfield move into tier 2 alongside London, Essex and Elmbridge; no decision yet on moving Greater Manchester and Lancashire into tier 3

In his response to Matt Hancock, Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, asked why some contractors were being paid more than £6,000 a day to work on the much-criticised NHS Test and Trace. He said:

Today, new figures show just 62% of contacts reached, that’s the equivalent to 81,000 people not reached circulating in society - even though they’ve been exposed to the virus. This is another record low.

And yesterday we learnt that consultants working on test and trace are being paid over £6,000 a day to run this failing service. In a single week this government is paying these senior consultants more than they pay an experienced nurse in a year.

In the Commons the Manchester MP Lucy Powell said there were was “unanimous fury” from local MPs earlier when they were being briefed on the situation by one of Matt Hancock’s ministerial colleagues.

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London to face tighter Covid restrictions from Friday night

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No 10 also set to extend tier 3 lockdown measures to Greater Manchester as cases rise

London will be placed in high-risk, tier 2 coronavirus restrictions from Friday night as infection rates in the capital continue to increase, MPs and the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, have confirmed.

The decision came as Boris Johnson was expected to sign off on the harshest tier 3 coronavirus measures for millions more people in the north of England later on Thursday, with Downing Street putting last minute pressure on local leaders in Greater Manchester to accept the changes.

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Welsh government insists police can enforce Covid travel ban

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Police say they lack resources to prevent people travelling from hotspots elsewhere in UK

The Welsh government has said it is confident the police will be able to enforce rules banning people from travelling to Wales from Covid-19 hotspots in other parts of the UK.

Welsh Police Federation officials expressed concern on Thursday that it would be difficult to stop people travelling to Wales because police did not have the resources and would find it difficult to identify where people were coming from.

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UK brands act to cut catch of ‘near-threatened’ yellowfin tuna

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Voluntary action of companies including Tesco and Princes aims to put pressure on regulatory body to tackle overfishing

British supermarkets and brands, including Tesco, the Co-op and Princes, are stepping up action to cut yellowfin tuna catches in the Indian Ocean, amid warnings the stock is in a “critical” state.

The effort, by companies reliant on healthy fish stocks, represents a counterintuitive effort to force regulators to act, rather than the other way around.

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New Brexit law will let vulnerable EU citizens apply late to stay in UK

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Those with ‘reasonable excuse’, such as children in care, will face no time limit, says Home Office

The government is to fast-track legislation that it believes will stop vulnerable EU citizens becoming Windrush-type victims of Brexit, it has emerged.

Under the secondary legislation, vulnerable citizens already lawfully living in the country, such as children in care and homeless people, may be able to apply for settled status years after the 30 June 2021 deadline.

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US election: what a Biden or Trump victory could mean for Britain

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It could be the most significant election for US foreign policy since 1940, with huge implications for the UK

The British government has a long history of misreading America – from Lord Palmerston expecting the Confederacy to survive the civil war, to Ernie Bevin being shocked that the US would not pay the UK’s postwar bills, to Tony Blair believing in 2003 that he could ride the US military tiger in Iraq and create a democracy.

Few serving or former British diplomats are confidently predicting the outcome of this November’s presidential election, or even whether an increasingly erratic Donald Trump will accept the result as legitimate. The collective delusion about the 2016 election hangs heavy.

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Long Covid: what we know so far

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Lasting symptoms may not be down to a single syndrome but several different ones

At the start of the pandemic we were told that Covid-19 was a respiratory illness from which most people would recover within two or three weeks, but it’s increasingly clear that there may be tens of thousands of people, if not hundreds of thousands, who have been left experiencing symptoms months after becoming infected.

Now, the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) has released a report which suggests that “long Covid” may not be a single syndrome, but up to four different ones, which some patients might be experiencing simultaneously. Here’s what we now know:

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Covid could overwhelm NHS without more curbs, northern leaders told

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Decision expected on whether to extend tier 3 rules to Greater Manchester and Lancashire

Deaths from coronavirus will continue to rise for at least three weeks and the NHS risks being overwhelmed unless the strictest curbs are imposed on another 4 million people, leaders in northern England have been told.

A decision on whether to extend tier 3 restrictions – closing pubs and restaurants and banning household mixing – to Greater Manchester and Lancashire is expected on Thursday.

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Elton John and ex-wife Renate Blauel settle legal dispute

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Blauel filed case against singer after details of their marriage featured in his memoir and Rocketman biopic

Sir Elton John and his ex-wife, Renate Blauel, have settled a legal case brought after details of the marriage were featured in the singer’s memoir and biopic.

Blauel had sued John for allegedly breaching an agreement the pair signed after their divorce in 1988 which, her lawyers said, prevented either of them discussing the marriage or reasons for their separation.

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Ministers plan pre-Christmas Covid lockdown for English universities

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Exclusive: students would be told to remain on campus and all teaching done online

Ministers want to place universities in England into lockdown for two weeks before Christmas, with students told to remain on campus and all teaching carried out online, the Guardian has learned.

Under the government’s plan, which is in its early stages, universities would go into lockdown from 8 December until 22 December, when all students would be allowed to return to their home towns.

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EU deal still possible, PM to be told, as potential fisheries plan emerges

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UK negotiator to tell Boris Johnson that two more weeks of talks could lead to breakthrough

Boris Johnson will be advised by his chief negotiator that a trade deal with the EU is still possible should the prime minister ditch his deadline and continue to negotiate with Brussels as tentative signs of a compromise on fisheries emerged.

David Frost, who has been in talks with the EU team led by Michel Barnier this week, will inform the prime minister that a further two weeks, at least, of daily talks could result in the remaining gaps being bridged.

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MI5 boss says Russian and Chinese threats to UK ‘growing in severity’

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Ken McCallum also pledges to boost diversity in the service as response to Black Lives Matter movement

MI5’s new boss has said the spy threats posed by China and Russia to the UK are “growing in severity and complexity” while the terrorist threat from Isis and the far right “persists at scale”.

Giving his first speech since his domestic spy agency’s director general in April, Ken McCallum focused on risks from hostile states, including undermining “the integrity of UK research” on a coronavirus vaccine.

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Coronavirus live news: France brings in 9pm curfew for Paris region and eight other cities

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Public heath emergency declared in France; Italy sees 7,332 new cases; record new daily infections in Portugal, Switzerland, Iran and Russia

The German chancellor Angela Merkel urged young people to do their part to halt the spread of the coronavirus after private parties were repeatedly blamed for localised outbreaks in German cities.

“We must call especially on young people to do without a few parties now in order to have a good life tomorrow or the day after,” Merkel said at a news conference after agreeing additional measures against coronavirus with the heads of Germany’s 16 states.

Ireland’s government moved three counties on its open border with Northern Ireland - Donegal, Monaghan and Cavan - to Level 4 of its five-step framework of Covid-19 constraints and banned almost all visits to homes across the country.

Northern Ireland announced the strictest curbs seen in the UK since early summer on Wednesday in response to a rapid rise in cases that the Irish prime minister Micheal Martin described as “hugely worrying.”

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Image of tiger hugging tree wins 2020 wildlife photographer award

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Sergey Gorshkov left a hidden camera in a Russian forest for 11 months to capture the big cat

An image of a clearly ecstatic tigress hugging an ancient Manchurian fir tree in a remote Siberian forest has won one of the world’s most prestigious photography prizes.

It took Russian photographer Sergey Gorshkov 11 months to capture the moment using hidden cameras. His patience led to him being named 2020 wildlife photographer of the year by the Duchess of Cambridge at a ceremony at London’s Natural History Museum.

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